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Journeys To Mother Love

~ Encouragement and healing in mother/child relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Tag Archives: life and death

Holy Saturday

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's healing love, grief and loss, Jesus on the cross, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Easter, future hope, Holy Week, life and death, Pieta, Sadness

Detail from the Lutin Pieta (Wikimedia)

Detail from the Lutin Pieta (Wikimedia)

 

During Holy Saturday, between the crucifixion and the resurrection, a time of disappointment, waiting, uncertainty, sadness…. I am reminded of what to do with this “weight of sorrow,” these tears: bring them to Jesus …

  • See him kneeling in the garden, overwhelmed with sorrow, in anguished prayer and sweating drops of blood.
  • See him enduring the cruelest injustice, ridicule, and inflicted pain.
  • See him hanging on the cross agonizing, bleeding, and dying, because of my sins. … read more (What to do with sorrow)

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Sorrow and Hope at Christmas

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in childhood memories, emotional needs, encouraging each other, family gatherings, losing mom too soon, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Christmastime, future hope, hope, Jesus, life and death, Mary

"JOY - 1977" Tree Ornament

An ornament I received the Christmas my mother died, that I hang on my tree every year.

Ah, Christmas! Bright lights, hustle and bustle, joyous music and celebrations….

Yet, hidden behind all the glitter, many people feel the pangs of sadness and loneliness more acutely during the Christmas season. If you have ever experienced a great loss at Christmastime, the holiday season awakens that grief again each year.

I know. My mother died on December 19, 1977. My father was the pastor of a loving church at the time, and the people were sweet to us, though they also grieved the death of their beloved pastor’s wife. Our family found comfort in togetherness—my husband and I with our two toddlers, my sister, and our dad. After the funeral, we stayed and spent Christmas in our parents’ home, with everything around us to remind us of Mother. … But no mother. She was not there and would never be again.

At a time when we celebrated the birth of Jesus who brought new life, we learned first-hand the awful separation and finality of death. The first night after she died, I lay awake in the guest bedroom listening to Daddy sobbing his heart out in the next room.

She was too young to die—in her forties. But she was gone.

We wanted the children—still toddlers—to have fun, not just sadness, so we borrowed little sleds and took them out to play in the snowy woods. In the fresh, crisp air we all laughed like children, a wonderful relief, and exactly what Mother would want for us. Maybe she saw us. Maybe she was laughing for joy with us.

Mother always infused Christmas with music, anticipation, beauty, delicious tastes and scents, warmth and surprises. She loved decorating the house and the church, preparing special music and programs for Christmas Sunday, often sewing new dresses for my sister and me, baking cookies, taking us Christmas shopping, and finding time to care for people who were sad and lonely.

Christ-Carolers

Christmas Carolers, figurines that belonged to my mother.

I love Christmas, too, but everything about it reminds me of Mother and of my loss. Even after many years, the bright lights, the biting scent of pine and cinnamon, the taste of frosted sugar cookies and cider, the making of fudge and fruitcake, the singing of carols, the ringing of Christmas bells, the decorating of the tree, the excitement of gift giving—all is sweet sorrow.

Did sadness mix with joy for Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she carried her baby to the temple and heard Simeon prophesy her child’s death? He said, “A sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). Mary didn’t understand yet that Jesus’ death as well as his life would bring eternal joy in the heavens and cause his birth to be celebrated for centuries to come. But she would certainly experience heart-piercing sorrow and separation.

Christ-Nativity

A paper nativity scene I treasure, that my mother used to display every Christmas when I was a child. – C.Lawton

Years later, as Mary watched Jesus die a tragic, painful death, did she despair? Or did the memory of the miracles surrounding his birth and life give her hope? Life won out. His death brought our spiritual birth.

Now we know, because of his birth, life and death, we can live—and celebrate Christmas—in the certainty that death will not have the final victory.

That Christmas day, six days after Mother died, our bereaved family celebrated together with gifts and festive food, scripture and prayer. Then we drove up a snowy hillside to a flower-covered grave site. The contrast of the red-rose-and-holly-covered grave to the icy, brown hills spoke to my warring emotions.

There, feeling the pain of death’s separation, I looked up into the evening sky and noticed the first star twinkling. Yes! Our hope still shown! The realities of pain, suffering, and death are inescapable. But they will be dissolved into everlasting life and joy because of the hope of Christmas.

~ Catherine Lawton

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Anonymous Graveside Flowers and the Eternal Now

12 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in Adopted children, childhood memories, encouraging each other, grief and loss, Influence of Grandparents, reach out and touch, the healing journey

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Tags

Adoption, Family, future hope, Grief Loss and Bereavement, life and death, relationships

Inskeep-graveside

My sister (right) and me at our grandparents’ grave

My sister, Beverly, visited me this month and we took a trip to the town where our grandparents lived. We searched the cemetery until we found their grave sites. Grandpa died about the time I got married. Grandma died just before I gave birth to my daughter. As I was moving forward in my own life, their earthly lives were ending. So the generations go. Walter and Edith Inskeep adopted our mother as a small child. They provided a loving and secure upbringing for her; and they gave my sister and me unmatched affection as the grandparents of our youth.

For Beverly and me, finding our grandparents’ graves and their tiny, now-rundown house, was a pilgrimage. These humble, hard-working, faithful people poured unconditional love and encouragement into our early lives. Since Mother was raised an only child then died quite young (in 1977), we lost contact with the extended family of Inskeeps.

Maybe that’s why it meant so much to see that someone, after all these years, had placed flowers on their graves.

Every Inskeep grave we found had flowers. Seeing those flowers after almost 40 years, did something for my heart. Those flowers made me feel:

  • Comforted. When I am too far away to show honor to the memory of those who loved and prayed for and cared for me, someone nearby is doing just that.
  • Connected, somehow, with the living as well as the dead.
  • Concrete Immediacy. I cherish the memories and the photos of long-ago departed, dear loved ones; but the memories grow more and more distant and far away. Those flowers carefully placed by human hands at the graveside gave me a sense of Now.

I wished for a way to say thank-you to the anonymous flower tender. I pray that every time the anonymous person tends those flowers, God will fill their heart with hope and a sense of the eternal now and eternal connectedness for honoring the memory of such good people.

~Catherine Lawton

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Grace to Mothers (and Fathers) Grieving Aborted Babies

08 Friday May 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in emotional needs, forgiving yourself, Free to Love, God's healing love, grief and loss, healing after abortion, Mother's Day, Regret transformed, the healing journey, The power of honest sharing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiving yourself, future hope, Healing love, life and death, Mother's Day, Post-Abortion Healing, unresolved hurt, Women's Issues

Sunset sky

Mother’s Day is painful for many people, for the bereaved, the childless, and those who suffer from post-abortion grief.

A few years ago I found my mother’s birth family, including three cousins, living not far from me. Recently I visited one male cousin the same age as me (he’s a Baby Boomer and Vietnam Vet, if that gives you an idea of our age).

Though he’s been married more than once, he has no children. Speaking of that fact, he got a little misty-eyed. Then he pointed to a memento sitting atop his TV: a ceramic baby booty. He said it represents a baby he fathered that the mother didn’t allow to come to birth. I know there’s always more to the story, and it’s true I don’t really know much about this “new” cousin’s past. I don’t know what that young woman years ago was going through, either.

I saw the tear in my cousin’s eye, though. And I heard the wistfulness in his voice when he told me he believed there was a child of his that he would meet in Heaven.

I was touched by the emotions of this man, over something that happened several decades ago.

A huge number of abortions have occurred in the years since abortion was legalized in America. If you believe as most Christians do, that babies and young children who die before the age of accountability go to Heaven; and if you believe that unborn babies are persons with eternal souls; then you believe as I do that all those aborted babies will be in Heaven. Perhaps they’ve been growing and developing in the nurture of Jesus and loving saints. Then, what a host of beloved children are waiting there.

My cousin obviously believes and hopes to meet his one child someday in the heavenly realms.

One of our Journeys to Mother Love contributors, Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton, has written movingly about her post-abortion experiences and healing. To my cousin and to Kyleen and to the many women and men who chose abortion when they felt trapped, hopeless, and helpless … the Lord of mercy and grace has healing, hope, and restoration for you. And He is taking care of your child. May that thought give you comfort this Mother’s Day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This video and the book it is based on, express the emotions that lead to and result from the choice of an abortion:

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A Mother With Alzheimer’s

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in emotional needs, generational patterns, the healing journey, when mom has alzheimer's

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Tags

Alzheimer's disease, Emotional and spiritual healing, Healing love, life and death

Dorothy&TwinsPasadena

“Can a mother forget … the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15, NIV).

I was in my thirties the day I was visiting my Grandma (pictured above as a young woman holding her firstborn twins). Now in her eighties, she lived alone since Grandpa had died. I lived close enough to enjoy occasional lunch-time visits with Grandma, and she always delighted in giving me news updates on all her family members (many of whom were in the pastoral ministry). That day I didn’t come for lunch, as one of her greatest joys—serving delicious meals to guests—had become too taxing for her.

This day I sat on her living-room couch. She stood nearby, pointing to a photo atop the old, upright piano.

“They tell me that’s my daughter. But I don’t know her,” Grandma told me.

“Grandma! That’s Aunt Cathy. She’s my daddy’s twin sister. She’s your eldest daughter,” I cried.

Grandma had always been so strong, bright, and capable. When things like this started happening, it took the family a while to catch on. Finally, one day one of my aunts received a call. Grandma had been found wandering, lost in a neighborhood quite a distance from her home. She was carrying Sunday School literature that she had the idea she should take to people in this new neighborhood. But she became disoriented, confused, frightened, and dehydrated.

It was not easy to get her out of her home, take away her independence, and finally have to place her in an Alzheimer’s facility. She resisted and we wondered what happened to our sweet, loving mother and grandmother. But with proper, secure living arrangements and medical care, she lived into her nineties. Though she could no longer say our names or remember anything since her childhood, and we struggled to make sense of the things she said to us, her face always lit up when she saw us coming. She knew we were “hers” and she seemed encouraged by our visits.

My father drove down from another state to visit her as often as he could.

In these situations we often ask, “Why, Lord? What good could possibly result from this?”

It was hardest for my aunts. But my dad actually received a beautiful, healing experience during his visits to his mother.

After she got past the belligerent stage many go through in early Alzheimer’s, the traits that came to the fore were her ministry mindset (she had been a pastor’s wife) and concern for other people. Her mind decided that if all these people had gathered in one place, it must be a church gathering or campmeeting time. And all these people would need to be fed! She talked about getting a bunch of chickens and putting them in a big pot to cook for these hungry people who were milling in the halls and sitting in the common areas.

Grandma had worked hard all her life. Daddy had probably never before had opportunities to just sit with his mother and be with her. I tell in Journeys to Mother Love about Grandma being “different” as a child because her father was half American Indian; about her beauty and gentleness but stoicism. How she never held Daddy on her lap as a small child. (He tells me he has no memory of being hugged or ever told the words, “I love you.”)

Now, after Alzheimer’s took away Grandma’s inhibitions, she sat close to him and reached over and held his hand. Even though she couldn’t say his name or talk about common memories, my father, now in his mid-sixties, experienced for the first time these expressions of mother love. A healing balm was applied to the painful memories of an emotionally-crippling childhood.

Our Lord is working through everything in our lives to bring us healing and wholeness. As our heavenly parent, he never forgets. He is ever mindful of us, ever reaching for us, ever expressing His love, even through the unlikely means of a terrible disease like Alzheimer’s.

~Catherine Lawton

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A Letter to Mom

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by vernahsimms in childhood memories, encouraging each other, Learning to appreciate Mom, Remembering Mother, the healing journey

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

future hope, life and death, mother and daughter

DearMother

Dear Mom,

I am writing your birthday letter early this year. I have so much to tell you, and it can’t wait until June. The sad news is Dee had a stroke. I couldn’t talk her into taking better care of her health. She is improving every day. I know how fond you were of her—your first grandchild. I appreciate how much you helped me when she was born 73 years ago.

Now, the good news. Remember I told you I was writing a historical novel? It is finished and accepted by Rockinghorse Publishing, and printed! I bet you would love it. Do you think that is an odd name for a publishing company? I do, but it is easy to remember. Water Under the Bridge is a work of fiction, but a lot of it mirrors our life when we lived in Claypool, Arizona. I tell about the time we went to see the first aeroplane, and also the couple in the book had to convert the parlor into a small store because of the Great Depression. I also mention your voting dress and how it got its name.

I already told you how I was published in an anthology, Journeys to Mother Love. Well, it is selling well. One of the nine authors whose stories are in the book, Ardis Nelson, contacted me by email. She is also writing to her dead mother. It would be nice if you could find her in Heaven, don’t you think? Ardis and I are becoming friends. Ardis promised to pray for Dee and for my joints. Isn’t that sweet of her?

Oh, yes, Larry is getting married this month. They wanted me to fly out to Oregon for the wedding, but I’ve decided against it. The last time I tried to fly, Missouri had a snow storm and we were stuck in the airport for 12 hours. The first plane we boarded developed problems and we had to get off while they tried to repair the damage—with no luck. What an unpleasant experience.

You get a chance, beam down and we’ll attend Easter services together. That would be a blast. I’m going to the covered bridge again this year. Leave me a message, if you can—maybe plant a wildflower on the spot where you rested the day we went there with Lewis, or place a rabbit close by. But no copperheads, please.

My eyes hurt. I’ll close for now. I love you and will soon join you and all the others whom I miss. Tell Irene when you see her—tell her I’m coming. Soon!

Love,
Verna

 ~Verna Hill Simms

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Mother Loss and Connection

12 Monday May 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in grief and loss, losing mom too soon, the healing journey

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Christian spirituality, future hope, life and death, Mother, Mother loss

Cemetery - near where my mother was buried

A resting – and remembering – and rising place

I have only visited my mother’s grave site a few times. It lies on a hillside, near sheltering trees, overlooking a river valley, facing the rising sun, three states away from where I now live. But those visits have reassured my soul and spoken to me in some mysterious way. I know she isn’t really there, not her spirit, not the essence of Mother. However, her body lies under the ground there in that grassy, flower-strewn slope. And when the Son of Righteousness appears in that eastern sky, she will rise there to meet him. Just being in that blessed place where that meeting will happen, and seeing her name engraved on that stone, touching and tracing her name with my fingers helps me feel a connection to her.

The loss of a mother, and the lasting connection to her, provides a theme that runs through literature and poetry. Reading these works can help us carry the burden, embrace the mystery, and release the emotions of the loss of Mother.

I just finished reading one such novel, The Messenger of Magnolia Street by Jordan River. In this book, the main character, named Nehemiah, returns to his hometown and visits his mother’s grave. There, surrounded by trees and flowers and gravestones, he stands before his mother’s burial place.

Nehemiah doesn’t know what else to say except, ‘Hi, Momma’ and ‘I miss you.’ He thinks about all the times he has needed her advice, all the times he’s thought he’d just reach out and pick up the phone and call her, but then, how silly was that? How many times he’d wanted to call her from Washington and tell her something to make her proud. … If there had ever been a time that he needed her sage words, he felt that time was now….

I can relate to this fictional character’s feelings, as I’m sure other contributors to this blog can. Treva, for instance, lost her mom to a violent, tragic event when she was a teenager. Ellen’s mother died just before Ellen’s birth. My mother died of cancer when I was in my twenties.

We hold and internalize their love for us and the wisdom they left us. And we cling to the hope that has been given to us. We are alive and we must live and carry out our purposes here. That’s what our mothers would want us to do.

Someday it will be our turn to rest — and rise!

~Catherine Lawton

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Orphaned or Adopted? ~ Reflections on Easter Sunday

20 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by ardisanelson in Adopted children, encouraging each other, God as our parent, Jesus on the cross

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Adoption, Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, future hope, God the Father, God's promises, life and death

cross

We all have parents, whether we physically knew them or not. In my case, I knew both of my parents, growing up in a home where they both lived until I was nine. It was at that point that they divorced. My mother, my two brothers and me moved 2,000 miles away so we could be near my mother’s relatives.

Saying goodbye that day to my father on the plane was a very painful experience. It was back in the day when non-ticketed friends and family could go beyond the security check-point at the airport. My father walked us all onto the plane and paid special attention to me. Through my tears I could hear him reassuringly say, “Everything is going to be ok. You need to be a big girl now and take care of your mother.”

That was not my first taste of abandonment, but it’s the one I remember most. My previous taste of abandonment was when my mother had her nervous breakdown when I was six years old. She didn’t choose to abandon me, but the effects of that event led me to never really knowing my mother as a person.

Those two abandonments early on in my life left me seeking to fill the void in my heart in unhealthy ways. I tried throughout my teens and into adulthood to win my father’s approval—to feel important in his eyes. Worse than that were the choices I made to rebel against God. Thankfully God has redeemed the pain of my youth and beyond.

When I grew up—I mean really grew up emotionally on the inside—not my physical age, I started to recognize and label these abandonments for what they were and the affects they had on me. Now that both of my parents are gone (going on two years), a friend who recently lost the second of her parents asked me if I feel (or felt) like an orphan after they passed.

Her question gave me an opportunity to reflect on that very point. We talked about it a bit. My response was ‘no’. I can certainly understand how one would feel that way. However, for me, I led the life of an orphan most of my adult life. As I actively turned to Christ in the last decade or so, I learned more about my significance to God and the role the Body of Christ was intended to play in my life. I built relationships with other women who were also hungry for God and seeking to become the women He designed them to be.

I was no longer orphaned; I was adopted. I was adopted into the Body of Christ and was now part of His family.  Romans 8:14-16 tells us:  For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.  The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

With that adoption comes a responsibility to live life as God designed. Easter Sunday is a marker of that adoption for all who accept Christ as their Savior. Our adoption certificates are signed with his blood. Let us not take that for granted.

Regardless of the relationship you had or didn’t have with your parents, may you embrace the love of our Heavenly Father and His physical representatives on earth as your family.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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Filling the Mother-Loss with Tangible Grace

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in Adopted children, emotional needs, encouraging each other, generations coming together, God's healing love, grief and loss, losing mom too soon, the healing journey

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Adoption, caverns of the heart, Emotional and spiritual healing, future hope, Healing love, life and death, life stages

CG1girl

When your mother dies, especially if she is still quite young, you can feel forsaken and forlorn. And even when your heart embraces the mercy of these true words: “When my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will take me up” — there remains a mother-shaped cavern in your heart that reminds you every day of your loss.

But the Lord has shown me that He wants to fill that hole in my life with the most unexpected, beautiful gifts. I have been wanting to tell my readers about the wondrous gifts that have been coming to me. And I think it is time now. So, with a sense of Heaven’s nearness, a smile of awe, and a few tears, I’ll share the rest of the story….

This week my pastor concluded his sermon with the words, “Filling our imagination with Jesus, we increasingly live in touch with reality, while the whole world is out of touch with reality.” I know this is true. I’ve experienced Jesus working through my imagination to enter and heal the losses and wounds of my life. Our minds can believe all sorts of lies, and our hearts can be oppressed by darkness; but when Jesus steps in to fill a mind and a heart, light shines out the darkness, and loving truth dispels crippling falsehood.

You can read my story — of how Jesus “took me up” and healed my heart — in Journeys to Mother Love. Part of that story is that for many years I have lived with a mother-cavern in my heart since my mother died when I was in my twenties. Since Mother was adopted as a young child out of a large family fallen on hard times (during the Great Depression, her mother died of TB and her father left to find work) … and then, adopted, she was raised as an only child … I have had no relatives on my mother’s side.

Then, 18 months ago, after years of searching, I found my mother’s birth family — living within an hour’s drive of my husband and me! I found a cousin the same age as my mother who had been a toddler in the same home with Mother and always wondered what happened to little Imogene. At 83 she was the last of the generation that remembered my mother, Imogene. So I found her in the nick of time.

This new-found cousin, Mary Lou, was as thrilled to find me as I was to find her. We felt a bond immediately, and the mother-cavern in my heart didn’t feel so empty. And gradually I learned that she was a person of faith who loved the Lord and prayed for her family.

I treasure the times we spent together: visits in my home and in her apartment, sharing lunches together, looking through photo albums, finding so many ways our paths have intersected unbeknown to us, feeling her strong grasp of my hands, her kisses on my cheeks, hearing her heartfelt, “I love you!”

Then this winter she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Long vigils in the hospital brought my husband and me together with her children and grandchildren. And the heart-cavern of impending loss filled with cousins who enfolded me and I have found myself surrounded by family I never expected to have.

Last Friday night my husband and I stood with 16 of Mary Lou’s family members around her ICU bed as she lay at death’s door. We had each had opportunity to sit with her, express our love, and say good-bye. But the grief and sadness were creating a huge cavern of grief in the room, felt by everyone present.

Then this family, with tears, each at various stages of belief and doubt, gathered round the beloved mother and grandmother who had been their strong, caring, faithful hub and, instead of calling the hospital chaplain, asked one of her sons, who had been a steady church attender, to pray. I doubt the family had ever done that before. But as gentle, simple, real, heartfelt words poured from that brother (one of my new-found cousins, who has had much suffering in his life) grace like rain poured sweetness into the gaping cavern of sadness. Surely every heart, no matter how unaccustomed to praying, was touched. … How can sadness be so sweet?!

Soon after that I read my friend Jasona’s blog in which she writes, “I see loss, difficulty, and uncertainty as cavernous places, and I have hope that when we open them to Jesus he fills them with grace so they can become … like settings for diamonds.” (You can read her entire blog post here.) Jasona’s post came to me as another gracious gift that helped me fill my imagination with Jesus, helped me deal with the grief in a way that was in touch with reality — the realities of Life in the midst of death, Light in the midst of darkness, Heaven in the midst of our earthy lives, and the Wonders of God’s ways.

~ Catherine Lawton

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Leaving a Legacy of Healing

25 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by ardisanelson in challenges of motherhood, emotional needs, forgiving mom, generational patterns, God's healing love, leaving a legacy, Parenting, the healing journey

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, Forgiveness, Healing love, life and death, Modeling the faith, Parenting

Evening Light on the Grasses

Lately I’ve been struck with reminders of the importance of legacy and purpose in our lives—most recently while attending a memorial service for someone I knew at church who died suddenly before Christmas. She was a vibrant part of our church community, serving in many capacities, but most notably as Lady Jellybean, a beloved clown in the children’s ministry. Her passing was a great loss to all who knew her.

This got me to thinking more about the legacy that I’m leaving. What will people say about me after I’m gone? How will my family remember me? I’m the first to admit that I don’t have it all together, that I am at times overwhelmed by all the irons I have in the fire, and even that I’ve fallen short of my kids’ or my husband’s expectations.

I came into marriage over thirty years ago carrying a lot of baggage from a turbulent and empty childhood. I didn’t have the kind of parents who modeled a godly marriage or who poured into my siblings and me in ways that bonded us on an emotional level. Quite the contrary, we didn’t know anything about emotional bonding.

It wasn’t until much later in life, when I re-dedicated my life to Christ, and started attending Bible studies, spiritual growth classes, and Celebrate Recovery, that I realized the damage I was causing in my own family and in myself.

As I started to understand things about myself, learned what I hadn’t received emotionally (or have modeled to me), I began to make changes in my parenting and my relationship with my husband—though both are still far from perfect. The point is, we can make changes in our lives that will affect the legacy we leave behind.

Case in point: although my mother was mentally ill all her life, I realized in her passing three years ago that she didn’t leave me a legacy of mental illness as I had feared she would. She left me a great legacy of faith by modeling that to me. I didn’t appreciate it when I was young, but see it now as a vibrant part of who I am.

Before my father passed away the following year, there was a great deal of healing between us as well. Those last few months gave both of us peace in his passing. Those are the memories that stand out to me now as I think of what he gave me. I attribute that to God’s work in me and my ability to forgive both of my parents early on in my recovery and healing process.

I am breaking the generational curse of dysfunction by modeling biblical principles with my sons. I wish I had known then—when my kids were young—what I know now. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they enter into the therapeutic process because of things I said or did out of my parenting and biblical ignorance.

My hope in all of this is that, when I’m dead and gone, my sons will remember that I had a heart for Jesus and that He became the foundation of my life. And when they decide to enter into the healing process, I hope and pray that they will embrace it with grace for themselves and their imperfect parents, along with embracing their Abba Father, who is the Healer of all wounds.

“Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.” Psalm 30:2, NIV

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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Sorrow and Hope at Christmas

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's healing love, grief and loss, losing mom too soon, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christian spirituality, Christmas, Emotional and spiritual healing, Family, future hope, God's promises, Holidays, life and death, life stages, Mother, relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Ah, Christmas! Bright lights, hustle and bustle, joyous music and celebrations….

Yet, hidden behind all the glitter, many people feel the pangs of sadness and loneliness more acutely during the Christmas season. If you have ever experienced a great loss at Christmastime, the holiday season awakens that grief again each year.

I know. My mother died on December 19, 1977. My father was the pastor of a loving church at the time, and the people were sweet to us, though they also grieved the death of their beloved pastor’s wife. Our family found comfort in togetherness—my husband and I with our two toddlers, my sister, and our dad. After the funeral, we stayed and spent Christmas in our parents’ home, with everything around us to remind us of Mother. … But no mother. She was not there and would never be again.

At a time when we celebrated the birth…

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A Grief That Can’t be Spoken

02 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in challenges of motherhood, God's healing love, grief and loss, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

future hope, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Healing love, John F Kennedy, life and death

Rose Kennedy, holding Joe Jr., presumably prio...

Rose Kennedy, holding Joe Jr., presumably prior to 1921. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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President John F. Kennedy and his mother, Rose (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When my birthday rolled around this year on November 22, I was reminded again of the significance of that day in history. It was on my fourth birthday in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and I remember it well.

I hadn’t heard the word “assassinate” before that day. The sorrow that gripped my family also gripped the nation. I didn’t like it. I wanted it to go away. But every day the television was awash in news stories as the nation prepared to bury our president.

Four days in history. Four days in mourning. Four days that shook our nation and the world, now commemorated 50 years ago.

My birthday link to the Kennedys left me with a fascination for this public family. I collected books and commemorative magazines over the years. The grief of the nation and the grief of the Kennedy family didn’t end with JFK’s death. Less than five years later we witnessed another horrific Kennedy assassination when Bobby Kennedy, JFK’s brother, was killed. Our nation grieved with the passing of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, JFK’s widow, in 1994. Then in 1999, the unthinkable happened when JFK, Jr. died in a tragic plane crash over the Atlantic. More sorrow. More grief.

There’s a song in Les Miserable called “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” that Marius, the sole survivor of the student revolt, sings after the heart-breaking massacre of all his friends. Two lines of that song stand out to me and aptly describe the grief of our nation. “There’s a grief that can’t be spoken. There’s a pain goes on and on.” Haunting words in his unfathomable predicament—fighting his guilt while also embracing the newfound love of his soon to be bride, Cosette.

These words ring true to me as I think of the Kennedy family and their grief. How does a mother like Rose Kennedy live with the grief of losing two sons to the bullet of an assassin? She had already lost two of her nine children to tragic plane crashes in the 1940s. Surely this was “a grief that can’t be spoken.” Yet she survived and lived to a ripe old age of 104.

It takes an amazing amount of faith and perseverance to endure that kind of loss. As mothers we feel the pain of our children’s hurts and disappointments—from the pain of a scraped knee to the hurt and rejection of bullying words voiced in school. But we were never meant to watch our children precede us in death.

Thankfully I’ve never experienced that kind of grief. I can only provide prayer, compassion, and sympathy to those who have. Like Rose Kennedy, whose faith got her through the pain and heartache shared by the nation, we can turn to the God of all comfort when life turns tragically wrong and we enter into a season with “a grief that can’t be spoken.”

“For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” (Lamentations 3:31-33, NIV)

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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Filling the Jar with Rocks

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in encouraging each other, Gratitude, reach out and touch, show love by serving

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

authentic relationship, Family, friendship, giving and receiving, Gratitude, life and death, relationships

 Rocks in a Jar

Ever since my “invest in people” nudge from the Lord referenced in “Walking My Mother Home,” I’ve paid more attention to those little nudges. Following that first nudge has led to dramatic changes in my life including my friendship with Rosa, Pedro’s mother, and my one-on-one investing in others who God puts on my path.

This is the story of a recent people investment that had profound results.

I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when I got a call from Sandra, a new friend my husband and I met at a marriage workshop we recently attended in California. My surprise turned to sadness when I heard her brother had passed away. Sandra had dropped everything to fly to Washington State to see him before he died. On that short trip she hadn’t had time to meet with me, but would be back in town for the memorial service.

A few weeks passed and I was surprised to see that the memorial service was scheduled at the country club a mile from my house. Initially Sandra had hoped we would connect over a cup of coffee, but her time was filled with family obligations. That was perfectly understandable.

Regardless of that, I knew I would go to the memorial service. I didn’t know Sandra’s brother. I didn’t know her family. I barely knew her. Yet after an intensive weekend together in couples’ counseling sessions, we already had a heart connection. I didn’t consider not going.

After hugs on my arrival, she seated me next to a relative and bravely took her position up front with the immediate family. As the service started, I felt a nudge to record the proceedings. That isn’t totally out of character for me. My digital recorder is an indispensable tool for my writing. I didn’t really give it a second thought.

Family members read letters filled with sweet stories and memories of Sandra’s brother. The chaplain shared a story (author unknown) about sand, pebbles and rocks filling up a jar. The point of the metaphor was that the rocks are the important things in our lives—the people and things we can’t replace—and that we should make them a priority. If we fill our lives (the jar) with the unimportant things in life (the sand and pebbles) we won’t have room for the rocks. It was a fitting reflection to end the service.

When Sandra and I connected after the service, she mentioned how disappointed she was that her elderly mother couldn’t attend the service. She so wanted to have the service recorded but there were family objections to that.

“Really? That’s so sad,” I said. I felt goosebumps as I remembered I had recorded the service. I confessed my transgression to her. She was thrilled and started to cry. Sandra proceeded to tell me how anxious she had been about that for the past few weeks. My recording was answered prayer for her. It was a kiss from above and a reminder of God’s amazing love for us.

Sandra and I stole some time together on the deck of the clubhouse overlooking the golf course, basking in the warmth of the sun. We caught up on our lives, prayed for each other and reflected on how perfectly God had filled our jars on that very day with what was truly important—time together and the simple gift of following a nudge to invest in people.

What are you filling your jar with?

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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A Letter to my Mom

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in God's healing love, Learning to appreciate Mom, leaving a legacy, mother wounds, show love by serving

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, giving and receiving, life and death, Modeling the faith

Ardis and her mother in the hospital

Ardis with her mother on the first trip she describes in her story, “Walking my Mother Home” in Journeys to Mother Love

Reading each of the stories in “Journeys to Mother Love” gave me a glimpse into the lives and pain of eight other women who have allowed Christ to bring healing into their hearts. I love reading stories like these because they impart hope and inspiration that each of us can connect with or apply to our lives.

One of my takeaways was from the story written by Verna Hills Simms, “Take Care of Your Mother.” I was touched by how she writes a letter to her deceased mother every year on her mother’s birthday. I thought it was a wonderful idea, and decided to do the same thing. With the anniversary of my mother’s passing a few weeks ago, I chose to do it in honor of that occasion.

Dear Mom,

It has been two years since the day the Lord took you home to be with Him. I still marvel how God perfectly orchestrated the events leading up to your death and the identity revelations He gave me as a result. I know you have been watching all of these things from above. I sense your overwhelming joy at how I have embraced the parts of me that mirror your personality and faith in the Lord.

After you passed away, it was hard for me to adapt and internalize all of the changes. I look back now and can hardly recognize the person I was before. Rosa and Pedro are a regular part of my life now. It is like I have found a long lost sister, and adopted Pedro as a son. I will finally meet Rosa face to face in Spain this summer. I know you will be there with me in spirit too.

I know you are at peace where you are. I delight in the thought that Carmen, Rosa’s mother, was waiting with open arms to meet you there as well. Your family expanded in heaven the day you died as mine did here on earth with Rosa and Pedro.

Mom, I know the months, weeks and days that passed after your stroke must’ve seemed like an eternity to you, not being able to speak, to feed yourself and needing total care just for routine bodily functions. I wish I could’ve helped more and been by your side more than just those few visits. I wanted you to know that those visits were so special to me—to be able to dote on you and help care for you like you did for me over fifty years ago when I was young. I know you loved me and did all you could for me.

Your suffering was for a purpose as it gave me an opportunity to see myself as God sees me and eliminated my fears related to your mental illness. That was not the legacy the Lord destined for you to hand down to me. I am mentally healthy now. And the Lord has helped me to embrace your sensitivity and faith as the legacies I want to impart to others.

Thank you, Mom, for your sacrifices and your final gift of unconditional love.  I look forward to the day we are reunited in eternity. 

Love,
Ardis

~ Ardis Nelson

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A Yarn about Love

20 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in losing mom too soon, the healing journey

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Tags

a heart filled with love and hope, life and death, mother and daughter, Prayer

Alpaca-wool. Svenska: Alpackaull

Mother was not expected to live much longer. But she never spoke of death. She kept knitting Christmas presents and making plans to see all her family.

One day I took her to the hospital for cancer treatments, and a nurse told her about a good place to buy yarn at the woolen mills nearby. Mother wanted me to take her there.

“Are you sure you feel up to it?” I knew car rides were painful for her.

“Yes. Let’s go now while we’re out and I have the energy.”

“So we set off in my old Volvo through crowded and confusing city streets. At one point we found ourselves driving in circles. Mother held her sides as she laughed. If it hurt, she didn’t let on.

At the factory store, we found wool yarns dyed in every imaginable hue. Mother exclaimed over the colors and textures. “I get excited just thinking about new projects. Knitting is fun because each pattern is a new challenge. I’d love to make these sweaters.”

She thumbed through a pattern book, then replaced it on the rack. “After I finish the afghan I’m working on now, I’ll knit for the grandchildren.” Her tone indicated there would be plenty of time.

Inspired by Mother’s enthusiasm, I selected a basket full of yarns. Waiting in line to pay for them, I glanced at Mother. She stood near the woolen fabrics. A cloud seemed to have crossed over her. She was frowning. How tired she looked, how thin, how old (cancer had done that, though she was only 48 years old).

The joy of my purchase vanished. Leaving the shopping cart, I walked over to her. “Mother, here’s a chair. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I think I will. I guess I should have taken a pain pill this morning, but I hoped I could get by without it.”

Returning to the cashier’s line, I thought, What are we doing here? Suddenly I resented the whole scene: bustling shoppers, busy clerks, long lines. What is the purpose of all this? I made my purchase and walked Mother to the car, sadly realizing time with her was coming to an end.

Later I watched Mother as she sat knitting a ski cap for my sister. I knew she often prayed as she knitted. The long blue plastic needles kept crossing and interlocking the loops of green and white yarn. In a similar way her prayers were connecting link upon link of loving requests to the heart of God on behalf of those she loved.

She died about two months later. Mother loved life and held to it as long as she could. But even more she loved God and the people He put into her life. That love enabled her to endure, believe, and hope to the last.

~ Catherine Lawton

p.s. This true story first appeared in the book, My Turn to Care, compiled by Marlene Bagnull. First published by Thomas Nelson in 1994, it was reprinted by Ampelos Press. In 2012 the book was re-released by OakTara.

p.p.s. It is still hard for me to read and share these memories of my mother’s suffering and my loss of her when I was in my twenties. God has done so much deep healing in me through the years. Yet sadness can still wash over me and I long to see her. I know she’s completely free and whole and joyous with Jesus. As I get older I don’t want to spend too much time looking back, but keep looking forward in hope and anticipation.

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